NEIGHBOURHOOD PLANNING

Information on whether Parish and Town Councils need to carry out a Strategic Environmental Assessment can be found here.

Neighbourhood planning is the government's initiative of empowering local communities to help make and take forward planning proposals at a local level. The intention is that local people will be the driver to help shape how their local communities grow and develop over the coming years.

How neighbourhood plans have to be prepared is set out in the Neighbourhood Planning (General) Regulations 2012.

Neighbourhood plans can only be made by one of two groups: town or parish councils or neighbourhood forums.

A neighbourhood plan must be in general conformity with the local development plan. In this case, it would be the Island Plan Core Strategy. 

Once the proposals are in general conformity with the Core Strategy, it will be subject to an Examination in Public. If this is successful the document will be published for a local referendum and, as long as it receives 50% or more with regards to support, the Isle of Wight Council will adopt the document into the Island Plan.

You can find out further details on how to prepare a neighbourhood plan in our guidance note Local Voices, Island Issues – Neighbourhood Planning (Isle of Wight Council, November 2011) or by visiting the planning portal.

Evidence will be key to neighbourhood planning. In the preparation of our policy documents, the council uses a wide array of evidence based studies.  To get an appreciation of these different studies visit our background documents page, or the core document library from the Island Plan Core Strategy examination.